Bos on Impey was an example of a rider not accustomed to the rough-and-tumble of a bunch sprint panicking though, he was distraught himself & apologised immediately. Nothing intentional in there.And still he got a short ban, because you don't grab your competitor by the shirt. Ever.

If Moscon was involved in Reichenbach's crash in any way other than a genuine race incident, he should be be made to serve a suspension for that.

Yes, I agree. My point was about whether he should be thrown out of the sport given that he did what we probably all suspect he did, and the difficulty of proving it.

This bombshell exclusive was heard by all who listened to Nicole Sapstead's report to the CMS, last March.

My recollection of the evidence of our sacred leader in the fight for justice on the playing fields of our green islands, is a little bit shaky, its been a few months, but can you help me out a little here. I just need you to point out the line in Sapstead's evidence where she says that, entirely contrary to what she was told by BC, the supplier did in fact have an order from the Manchester velodrome. Also I did not quite remember her ever saying that when they had so diligently inquired of the supplier, the supplier had co-operated, as you must do with such an august body, particularly when they ask in such a polite way, even if legally you can ignore anything because legislatively they have an armoury made up of one feather duster and one partly eaten marsh-mallow, and the supplier identified that later, after they had fulfilled the order as requested, what they hell, they then had a request from a person at the National Cycling Centre advising them to send in a bogus email stating that the testosterone patches had been sent in by mistake. And of course being good honest citizens with all their licences for selling controlled substances in good order they diligently brought this to the attention of Ms Sapstead and her high-riding, clan-busting, posse of truth-hunters.

I do remember Sapstead saying that she had oh so nice a conversation with that oh so nice person who wrote that book, the chimpmeister himself. She told us that the boss, Peters, was so on the ball that he spotted this big box of PEDs in the medical room one day, as you do and thought, "I wonder who that is for?" and so he insisted that it be put on the record that he asked that very nice guy, the one who lost his laptop, Freeman, who told him, "you have seen it as well !" And then Freeman said he would find out why it was there and then later Peters said he was shown a very nice email printed out clearly in nice ink on a very clean sheet of paper that said "ooopppppise. That was our mistake. We just happened to send a very, very, very large box of PED patches to you by error. Can you please let us have them back?"

And the chimpmeister, who had worked with Shane Sutton and Sir Dave Braislford for a long time and so knows his onions on this sort of thing said "Oh that is great. Now I can get on with other stuff like asking my chimp if he likes this jumper I am wearing."

Mellow. If you don't read the article or understand the context, why do you post ?

the team appears to have used drugs for performance enhancement, not therapy: “… Contrary to the testimony of David Brailsford in front of the Committee, we believe that drugs were being used by Team Sky, within the WADA rules, to enhance the performance of riders, and not just to treat medical need.”

Quote

report added that “the use of Tramadol would not appear to be only in rare cases where extreme pain has been caused by injury, but rather as part of the pre-race preparation for certain riders.”

The Select Committee considered in its report that Wiggins and possibly teammates used controlled substances for non-medical purposes or, in other words, for performance enhancing purposes. Team Sky and Wiggins separately stated that they did not agree with this conclusion.

For all the usual journo waffle, I have not seen the outcome expressed more succinctly than by these two tweets (except perhaps for the very last sentence, which remains to be seen):

The British papers have gone IN on Wiggins and Team Sky. They have kept fairly quiet about the Chris Froome situation, by their standards, so was curious to see what the reaction would be. Here's an Echoes-style round-up for you all.

I was looking through this thread for something brilliantly written I read long ago, but it's a freaking 68 pages now and I can't find it. However, one thing I noticed was this posthttp://velorooms.com/index.php?topic=636.msg2226394#msg2226394When first I read it I thought it was recently posted before I realized how much of this was mostly out in the public a whole year ago - it is an old post. Now if only I can find what I was looking for .....

I was looking through this thread for something brilliantly written I read long ago, but it's a freaking 68 pages now and I can't find it. However, one thing I noticed was this posthttp://velorooms.com/index.php?topic=636.msg2226394#msg2226394When first I read it I thought it was recently posted before I realized how much of this was mostly out in the public a whole year ago - it is an old post. Now if only I can find what I was looking for .....

It's true that it is, in some sense, all old news. All we had today in the media were the delayed reactions to it. But the report itself makes for interesting reading if only for the raw details.

Love this tongue-in-cheek byplay in the CN live text coverage of today's TdF stage.

Quote

13:59:42 CESTLappartient, meanwhile, has responded to Brailsford's criticism at the start in La Baule today. “I don’t especially want to respond to him, but I will say for that the last person who called me a ‘Breton mayor,’ it didn’t bring him luck. That was Brian Cookson… By insulting me as a mayor, he is insulting the 35,000 French mayors and the French in general. I don’t know what he is looking to do with that,” Lappartient told Le Parisien. “When you are arrogant, one day or another, there is always somebody who humbles you.”

13:54:03 CESTToday's stage, as pointed out, finishes in Sarzeau, where UCI president David Lappartient is the mayor. On Sunday, Transparency's Dave Brailsford criticised Lappartient's handling of the Chris Froome salbutamol case, claiming that the Breton "doesn't quite understand the responsibilities of a presidential role" and adding, "I think he’s still got the kind of local French mayor mentality." After spending much of the past two years ducking questions from reporters, it seems that Brailsford has suddenly re-found his voice this past week. Perhaps he might now finally deign to respond to the damning criticism of Team Sky's ethics - in particular, the use of corticosteroids - outlined in the Parliamentary Select Committee's report into doping in British sport, which was published in March. Or perhaps Brailsford doesn't quite understand the respsonsibilities of his role.

The overhead shot shows Peter Sagan appearing to jostle with a BMC rider approaching the top of the climb, but on second glance it appears that he might have tugged at his saddle as a joke. Hilarious, I'm sure.

Sir Bradley Wiggins has condemned the parliamentary report into the Team Sky Jiffy bag affair and the team’s use of the corticosteroid triamcinolone as “fabricated” and based on “unsubstantiated evidence".

Okay, fine, pretty typical muck-flinging. But then he says...

Quote from: Wiggins

The 2012 Tour de France winner, interviewed on ITV4, also stated that further facts have come to light which he would hope might be made public in the future.

So unsubstantiated aspertions are okay now?

Quote from: Wiggins

Speaking to ITV4, Wiggins claimed the DCMS committee had not attempted to speak to him in person and added: “The report was fabricated stuff and it seems that they used parliamentary privilege to get it through legally.”

“If I’d murdered someone and was on trial, all that unsubstantiated evidence couldn’t be used – it would be lack of evidence, thrown out. But you use parliamentary privilege and you can produce a report, try and ruin someone and there you go.”

This is a little disingenuous - the high standards of evidence in a criminal trial are there because, well, it's a criminal trial. You're meant to prove something beyond doubt, and have to do so because you are given quite extraordinary powers of punishment. A report is merely tasked with establishing, on the balance of probability, what happened.

Quote

Wiggins also hinted strongly he believed there might be more information to emerge. “There are things that have come to light with this whole thing that we’ve found out since that are quite scary actually and it’s very sinister. We’re still not at the bottom of it, we’re finding new stuff out daily to do with the package that never was and all this stuff and it’s quite frightening actually.

“We’re still working on it, still trying to piece it all together. Not a legal team, just other people coming to us now and saying: ‘You know this has happened, don’t you?’ We can debate TUEs and that’s one thing, but where it went after that with everything else – there is a film to be made there. I’d love it to all come out. Once it’s all stacked up and pieced together it’s quite shocking.”

To me this is just kind of funny, all the hush hush tones, saying it all needs to come out. Well Bradley, since you seem to know all of what's happened, why don't you enlighten us? Or is he not willing to put his name to an accusation... like the anonymous sources from the DCMS report?